It's been a long nite of watching mostly new money trophy hunters battle for big ticket modern art baubles at the first session of DAMIEN HIRST's much-hyped "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever" auction at SOTHEBY'S in London. Although the sale exceeded its overall $112,000,000 USD estimate to bring in a whopping $126,623,656 USD through the sale of 56 lots, the pieces that drew the biggest prices proved surprising. While the show's centerpiece, the massive 10 ton pickled bull installation, "The Golden Calf," was expected to easily exceed its auction estimate of $14,000,000 USD—$21,000,000 USD, and maybe even set a new sales record, the gavel banged at “only” the $17,960,802 USD mark. Meanwhile, the pickled shark known as "The Kingdom," which was only predicted to pull in between $7,000,000—$11,000,000 USD, wound up selling for a massive $17,242,370 USD. Other "stained glass" butterfly and skull spin art pieces also easily exceeded their not-so-conservative estimates proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that even with the recent banking industry collapse the modern art market is still wearing its recession-proof Kevlar vest with pride ("Can you believe this Lehman shit" was the banter of the eve). If that weren’t enough, 167 more Hirst lots will go on the block tomorrow in two additional day sales for a grand total of 223 pieces in all. If Mr Hirst’s master plan was to indeed prove that the gallery system is to established artists what the record industry is to music, he’s succeeded wildly (his longtime gallerist Larry Gagosian was notably absent from the proceedings, while other starmakers like Tony Shafrazi sat front and center). Whether today’s success can be replicated in the future by both Hirst and other artists with smaller PR staffs and less brightly lit halos remains to be seen. In the meantime, it’s a fun ride till the cart goes off the track. HAVE A LOOK:Read More

Just rolled into London to catch the upcoming DAMIEN HIRST auctions on Monday and Tuesday, September 15th & 16th at SOTHEBY'S. Titled "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever" sale is revolutionary in both size and precedent, as no other artist has ever offered this much original directly to the buying public via auction before. If all 223 pieces of art ranging from spin art skull paintings to new pickled tank animal pieces sell as briskly as critics are predicting, the British Bad Boy stands to net over £120 million from the sale. Not a bad take for a couple days of gavel banging. Stay tuned to Supertouch in the coming days for the full update...

Well, the results from today's Valentine's Day (AUCTION) RED at SOTHEBY'S NYC are in and from the look of things on the auction block, you'd never guess we're in the middle of a full-blown recession. The charity event's buzz piece, a collaborative painting between British bad boys DAMIEN HIRST and BANKSY titled "Keep it Spotless" with is actually a reworking by Banksy of an existing Hirst piece fetched an impressive $1,870,000 USD, far exceeding its estimated price of $250,000—$350,000. The real winner of the evening, however, was Hirst, whose prices skyrocketed through the auction with his most expensive work, the massive stainless steel pill case titled "Where There's a Will There's a Way" going for an astounding $7,150,000 USD. We're guessing the fact that all purchases were tax-deductible went a long way to opening bidder's wallets. Luckily, it's all for a good cause. In total, the auction raised $42m for Aids relief & research...

Much has been said about British bad boy artist DAMIEN HIRST's groundbreaking $100 million diamond-encrusted platinum skull titled "For The Love of God" since it went on display at London's White Cube Gallery in June, but to date, little has been revealed about the making of this bling masterpiece, until now. Supertouch offers a step-by-step look at the creation of this masterwork which was created FOR the artist by some of the masters of European jewelry making at London's Bentley & Skinner using over 8,601 of the world's most perfect, flawless diamonds and 2,156 grams of fresh platinum (not to mention $28 million of the artist's own money).